


quiet moments

by zauberer_sirin



Series: #CousyComfort [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Declarations Of Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship/Love, Future Fic, Post Season 5, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 14:32:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14357439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Written for the #CousyComfort challenge at johnsonandcoulson.com - After the word doesn't end Daisy anc Coulson get a moment to rest.





	quiet moments

It feels like they have been hugging for years, and yet Daisy is not ready to let go. She wonders if she’ll ever be, after all that’s happened.

(He knows, so he lets her cling to him longer, as long as she needs - even if it’s years, an eternity, really, now that he has one. Maybe not an eternity, but enough time to hug Daisy back, at least. And maybe, well, maybe he needs this too.)

Her knees hurt, standing like this on the pavement, but she needs to make sure this is real, before daring to move.

“We should probably get back to base,” Coulson says, burying his face in Daisy hair. “At some point.”

“Yeah…” she agrees, but so halfheartedly. “We should check you really are okay.”

(He feels her hand against his chest.)

She feels Coulson’s hand move up her beck, touch her nape.

“I’m okay,” he assures her, and hold her tighter.

“I thought I had lost you,” she says.

A sigh, hot against the skin of her jaw.

“I thought I had lost you too.”

In the distant the noises of recent panic and destruction - sirens, vehicles finally approaching, the hum of evacuation - start reaching them among the rubble.

“But… we’re alive. Aren’t we?” Daisy asks, glad to be still embracing so she can’t see Coulson’s face if he tells her otherwise.

“We’re alive,” he repeats - he doesn’t sound convinced either.

But he sounds hopeful enough.

 

+++

 

Coulson knocks at her door.

It’s not much of a door, and her bunk is not much of a room. People are just finding a place to crash, no one is ready to think about the future yet, or find somewhere permanent, see if they can go back home.

He’s changed clothes and looks like he’s gotten a shower at least - if not a meal, and Daisy can’t remember the last time she ate something that wasn’t reglementary protein bars - but the new clothes seem as wrinkled as the ones in which he survived the end of the world.

(she looks tired - but not regular lack-of-sleep tired; tired from what has been done to her, her mind and her body, by both friends and enemies, tired in a way that makes Coulson grit his teeth and feel shame washing over him).

Daisy looks up from her table; not really work, a bit of work, she can’t stop keeping busy.

“Doctors cleared you up?” she asks.

Coulson nods.

“You?”

She holds up and flexes her bandaged hands.

“I can’t use my powers for a while,” she replies. “Until my bones heal completely.”

“Gravitonium?” he asks, glancing over her still-dangerous body.

“Not a drop,” Daisy replies.

He nods.

“It’ll be fine, I don’t think we’ll be called on missions for a while. And even without your powers…”

He gestures. Daisy appreciates the confidence. She would usually have more of it herself but the last few days have made a dent of it, she’s grateful for any extra amount. 

“It’ll be nice to have a bit of quiet time,” she says. Though secretly, she is apprehensive of tackling question of the future, of how to go on after this.

“I agree,” Coulson says, with a little tired expression.

He seems about to leave her alone to get some rest - Daisy knows she needs it but…

“Coulson?”

“Yes?”

She looks up from her bunk. She bites the inside of her cheek, wondering if it’s selfish to ask.

“Do you mind staying with me a little longer?” she says. “I don’t feel like being alone right now.”

Coulson looks at her and crosses the threshold. He understands; Daisy didn’t have much time to talk to him about what happened - now she unconsciously touches her fingers to the healing cut on her neck - but he understands. He crosses the tiny room to where Daisy is sitting, and takes a place on the bed by her side.

“Honestly?” he says. “I don’t feel like being alone either.”

 

+++

 

A lifetime afterwards - no, a couple of hours later - Daisy wakes up. She opens her eyes to Coulson’s closed eyelids, his thick eyelashes, and creases on his brow. Does he always look worried when he sleeps? She wonders. She wiggles her body even closer to his, chasing his warmth. They didn’t even get under the covers, they fell asleep on the bunk, Coulson’s arm around Daisy’s middle. She remembers he held her (or she held him) and then they fell asleep, all the exhaustion of the last few days taking over. It was a nice dreamless sleep for a couple of hours. Daisy had been so scared of closing her eyes ever since Fitz strapped her to that stretcher; she knew what she would see if she fell asleep so she refused, only getting rest in ten minutes batches, not enough for nightmare, flashbacks, to form. 

But she didn’t fight it this time. She knew that with Coulson’s arm around her it’d be okay. Even if the nightmares, the intrusive memories, came to her. It’d be okay. She’d wake up to a warm embrace from the very person she had been needing a hug from all this time. It’s greedy of her but she is too tired and too hurt to care. It’s greedy to press her body against Coulson’s, wrap her leg around his, grab the front of his shirt with vicious fingers so he won’t be able to leave her. She almost lost him. 

(Coulson feels something warm and nice surround him - it was there before, but now the feeling is more intense, like moving a bit closer to a comforting fireplace in the middle of winter)

She watches those eyelashes move, the eyelids lift, right in front of her, so close. She doesn’t make any attempt to loosen her grip on Coulson as he starts stirring awake, or pretending it’s an accident that she’s holding him like this.

But Coulson doesn’t look upset - whatever that might be - at it, when he wakes up. Only a bit confused by where they are.

“It’s only been a couple of hours,” she tells him. “We can rest some more.”

The _we_ both tentative and very intentional. She could probably suggest he gets proper sleep in another corner of the base, instead of balancing uncomfortably in a single bed with her. Cuddling. Because that’s what they are doing or at least what it looks like or at least what it feels like to Daisy - though it’s not like she has any clear memory of what it should feel like.

(Coulson notices something glistening in the half-darkness, something he recognizes immediately, and makes his heart ache in a way that a stab through it, or the Ghost Rider’s curse, can’t begin to compare; hyperbolic as that might be it makes him hold his breath)

“Daisy…”

He touches his fingers to her cheek; it’s only when his fingertip presses against her skin that Daisy realizes her face is covered in traces, dried tears.

He holds up his fingers, stained with salty residue.

Daisy makes a dismissive sound, embarrassed. “Probably just exhaustion. Relief at sleeping again. Sleeping safely.”

Coulson drops his hand, resting it gently on Daisy’s shoulder. 

(Until this moment the idea of having to figure out what to do with a third chance at life seemed like an impossible task to Coulson; but now…)

“Sleeping safely,” he repeats, turning the idea in his head. Like he’s not sure she meant to say she feels safe because he’s here. Yeah, Daisy wants to say, she meant that. “I want you to be able to sleep safely. Always.”

She chuckles weakly. “Always? That’s a big commitment, Director.”

He shakes his head - as much as the lack of space on this bed allows him to.

“Don’t call me that,” he says. Daisy is not sure if he means he doesn’t want to be Director anymore, or that he doesn’t want the formality here, between them. “And I mean it.”

She arches an eyebrow.

Coulson brushes his lips against hers; soft, but enough not to be entirely innocent. Soft but not so soft that any of them could mistake it for anything else than what it is.

Daisy gets scared. 

Daisy gets scared, until she realizes the feeling is not fear.

It’s the sharp unfamiliarity of happiness.


End file.
